


through the darkness I become

by todreaminscarlet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon, Gen, Self-Hatred, canon character death, character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5434601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todreaminscarlet/pseuds/todreaminscarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has thought about this moment, this day; he has wondered how it would arrive, whether with flashes of glory and defiance, or with quiet rebellion. But this, this, he did not imagine, and yet he thinks he ought to have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	through the darkness I become

**Author's Note:**

> My exploration of the character of Severus Snape--neither completely good nor bad, just a man made from bad decisions and desperate war. This is from his point of view, so if it seems biased at times that's both my writing and his perspective. 
> 
> He has interested me for a long time, and I've been holding on to this piece, re-reading it and thinking about it. It's time to let it go.

(He feels like his life is just one big irony.)

 

He is the broken one, the angry one, the bitter, raging black storm.

 

He is the half-blood, the never-quite-good-enough, the unwanted son, the lonely friend, the death-eater, the betrayer, the traitor. His life is a series of unhappy endings one right after another.

 

It’s his fault.

 

He’s an adult. He knows it.

 

It doesn’t matter.

 

Because he could change, could try to be kinder and gentler (treat others the way no one treated him), but it’s been years and the bitterness fits him better, fills him better. He can follow along and obey his masters and let the resentment seep into his bones.

 

(He is the proof of bad decisions. He carries the weight of something heavier than _childhood foolishness_ on his back, and he keeps it there as a reminder, a proof, a justification that he can allow himself the comfort of his bitterness, his anger, the blackness that covers his heart and that he has draped across his body.)

 

The Dark Lord betrayed him first, he thinks sometimes. The Dark Lord could have had everything--his loyalty and allegiance. He would have fed the darkness for him, followed him forever (he was the best means to a powerful end). But his Lord betrayed him, ignored his pleas, and so he walks away and only comes back when another’s weary blue eyes stare at him with the painful wisdom that comes from years of turmoil ( _you know what I will ask of you_ , Albus says quietly years later, but he doesn’t really know. Doesn’t know that it means restraint and logic and pain and blood and torture and his soul and his mind and his _life_.)

 

(Or maybe he does. Severus can’t decide which is worse.)

 

In that moment of reckoning all those years ago, that fateful instant in time in which everything seemed to freeze, when his blood ran cold and his heart stopped beating and his lungs couldn’t inhale the air, the power and the hatred and the desire (for everything that was almost within reach for this most faithful servant of a powerful Lord; that glimmer of favor for a half-blood prince, for the boy who was anger and rage and resentment) was all _pointless_.

 

And in that moment of grief and fear, he makes a different choice than the half-blood who came before him (save them, save them, save _her_ , he begs, his knees pressed into the cold, dark ground, and not the cold humiliation nor the disgust on Dumbledore’s face is enough to make him rise.)

 

_(Save her_.)

 

He does what he has been asked to do, his heart aching and his mind angry, and he’s confused and lonely and scared and broken (he’s _young_ , so very, very young). He wants to run, really. He’s done his share: built and destroyed and betrayed and begged. He’s defined who he is: death eater, traitor, soldier, spy. He knows who he is not, who he will never be: free, safe, whole, forgiven.

 

And it falls apart. Of course it all falls apart.

 

He’s not surprised. Not really. She’s dead, and all promises are pointless, and he wants to scream and rage at the world that will do this, and the friends that betray and the masters that play and the masters that fail, and the fury and grief rises within him until his blood boils. He’s mad at the world, at them _all_ , at damn Potter for not saving her (for loving her and marrying her and impregnating her and making her a target, for _everything_ ), at Dumbledore for failing to protect them (of making him a tool, a disgusting piece of vermin to be used and discarded, and then making it pointless after all), at the Dark Lord for doing this (for ignoring his pleas, betraying his loyalty, his fealty), at Pettigrew the spineless creep (for betraying everything Severus never had for himself—friendship and companionship and youth). He’s mad at everyone.

 

(He’s furious at himself).

 

Because it’s on him, he knows this. He listened and reported and betrayed and sparked everything that has happened. He made the prophecy a reality, and he is everything Dumbledore accuses him of being.

 

(He still can’t help feeling bitter about that, even though he’s guilty and grieving, because he’s _more_ that all that though. He could have been more, almost had been more. He’s clever and smart and ambitious, and he loves with every fiber of his being, and he _could have been more_. He could have been so much more.)

 

(It doesn’t occur to him that that too could be his fault.)

 

He is a Slytherin’s Slytherin, really (no one more important the ones you choose; no one more important than the one: the girl with the kind, sparking eyes, with the life that sprung from her soul and the hair that would glisten in the sun). He betrayed her, he betrayed their friendship, the years, the love, and the knowledge it is all his fault is an impossible burden. He takes the pain, the regret, the love, and he buries it deep in his soul.

 

So he decides to protect what she left: one last act of devotion, of love, of friendship (he falls to his knees and prays for redemption, for salvation and he knows he is praying for his death. There is nothing but death for him.)

 

He spends the years working and listening to the shrill laughter of innocent children and sees ticking timers above their heads ( _to their graves, all of them,_ he thinks. _They’re all walking to their graves_ ). He sneers and jeers and chalks it up to being _believable_ to his cause. He lies (to himself, to Dumbledore, to everyone). And they all lie for him. ( _It’s just Professor Snape_ , his fellow professors say, their voices weary and impatient. _It’s just me_ , he thinks as he glares at a quivering student before him. _Look at you, shaking in front of me. And you do not even know what I am_ ). He likes causing pain; he likes knowing that his words can prod and hurt, that he can pass on a moment of his own pain. It even amuses him, really.

 

(He tries not to think about it.)

 

He’s not a nice man. He doesn’t try to be. He carries the guilt and the bitterness and the rage and stores it in his soul and works and tries and hates and saves and tells himself that he’s a cruel man, a hard one.

 

(It’s one of the many ironies, though, that he believes it. That he believes that there’s nothing good in him--no life, no love, no forgiveness; that he tells himself that he’s just doing the minimal, with nothing else to be done. But it’s curious, he ruminates in the dark of his quarters, that he does it at all--that he picks himself up and works and tries and saves them and betrays them and _does_ it all. He carries the epithets and the hatred with a cool, sneering calm that suppresses the rage, and he does it. He protects the children, and saves whom he can (and almost mourns the ones he can’t). He takes that scrap of love and affection from so very long ago and carries it buried under the cruelty and hatred, and _clings_ to it. (It doesn’t excuse him or save him, but it keeps him alive, keeps him going, gives him purpose.))

 

He takes that glimmer of hope and of love to which he has always clung and places it above his pride and his hunger for power, and he falls to his knees and promises (and this is a promise he will never break).

 

And when the days grow darker and the burden grows heavier, he will think about that moment, about the moment of regret, and the weight will grow too large to bear and he will think and his heart will grow tight ( _and black and black_ ). He will think about his betrayal and the decision he made and the anger he carries and the irony he knows, and he will smirk inside and look at the red serpent’s eyes and think (what will you do when you know; when you see that I am not yours; that I am hers--the one you killed, the one you ignored; what will you do when you learn that I am the traitor, the betrayer, the one who pleaded for salvation).

 

(He never stops to think that he will never know).

 

He dies on a dirty floor with the eyes that were never quite right staring into his soul. He hasn’t finished his job; wishes he could stay; wishes he could see before he dies; knows that he didn’t deserve that closure. Harry turns, runs, his mind slows; he’s dying, like he always knew he would; time is slowing, the darkness is creeping in (he should have known that there would be no bright lights beckoning him home). He is gasping, and blood is leaking crimson from his mouth, his chest, his neck (he wants to laugh; irony irony; covered in crimson just once in his life; dying present; red; bold, courageous red; it’s seeping through, he can’t see anymore. It’s all black, like it always was, no green anymore, no red. Just black. black.)

  
(black.)

**Author's Note:**

> He's a tricky character. He's so grey in almost every way. He's hard to respect and yet I've found it hard to hate him. 
> 
> I enjoyed writing this, and I enjoyed playing with a new style of writing even if it is a bit gratuitous. :) 
> 
> Happy Holidays. 
> 
> (find me on tumblr @adaperturamlibri!!)


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